Sunday, October 07, 2007

Free Market Leads to Lower Ticket Prices for MLB

Sites like StubHub may let people sell some World Series tickets for eye-popping prices. But letting the free market work actually leads to cheaper prices for fans.

The fact that there are services like StubHub increases the supply of tickets that can be sold on the secondary market, thus lowering the price.

It also helps that this year, Major League Baseball and more and more states around the country are finally acknowledging that it is in everyone's best interest to have a true transparent secondary market for ticket sales.

Baseball ticket sales on StubHub soared, and the site is now on pace to sell 5 million tickets this year alone, after selling a total of 5 million tickets in its first six years of existence.

The deal with baseball was beneficial enough to StubHub that it gave the sport something it never granted other teams or sports in its sponsorship deals -- a cut of the 25 percent combined commission that StubHub gets from the buyer and seller when a ticket is sold.